ACM-W Connections – May 2018

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Back in December, we announced the launch of our Professional Chapters project and welcomed Rachelle Hippler and Laura Spencer to the ACM-W Council to co-chair this effort. This month we are celebrating the April 25th chartering of the OCWiC ACM-W Professional Chapter – the first within the United States! I am personally thrilled and proud that the women of Ohio have achieved this milestone. The OCWiC Celebration was my first introduction to ACM-W and the community of women with whom I’ve shared my women-in-computing journey continues to provide inspiration for me and leadership for women in computing all over Ohio in so many ways. I hope we see many more ACM-W Professional Chapters rise up all over the US and around the world in order that we can further our mission in new and meaningful directions. You can read more about the OCWiC ACM-W Professional Chapter later in this newsletter.

Thank you, Oracle!

ACM-W sends a sincere “Thank you!” to Oracle for its generous $24,000 donation in support of our scholarships program. By continuing to invest in ACM-W Scholarships, Oracle’s gift will enable 20 domestic and 10 international undergraduate and/or graduate students to participate in technical research conferences that they might not otherwise have had the opportunity to attend. We will highlight the experiences of these Oracle Scholars in future editions of Connections.

Gender Gap survey is live

The 2018 Global Survey of Mathematical, Computing, and Natural Scientists launched on May 1st, 2018 and will remain open until October 31st, 2018. ACM-W has been active in the creation of this survey and encourages all ACM/ACM-W members to participate and assist us in promoting the survey to all professionals in these disciplines. Persons of all genders and computing backgrounds are welcome to responds. The survey is available in seven languages and can be accessed at http://statisticalresearchcenter.org/global18. The goal is 45,000 respondent (although more are welcome!) within the six month period.

Other ACM-W News

This newsletter also includes the following from our project committees:

The inaugural Polish Celebration of Women in Computing is the focus of the Celebrations report.

Chapter award news appears in the Student Chapters report along with the introduction of two new ACM-W Student Chapters.

The workshop/tutorial deadline of womENcourage is June 15. Details on submission of proposals appear in the news from ACM-W Europe.

Thanks for standing with us as we work to fulfill our mission.

Jodi Tims ACM-W Chair

News from ACM-W Celebrations

Coinciding with Women’s Day, March 9th and 10th, the Wroclaw ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter in collaboration with the Audiovisual Technology Center, hosted the first Polish ACM Celebration of Women in Technology under the name of _talk&tech 2018. It was a two-day conference that included four workshops about programming & career building, and seventeen talks from professionals and researchers in computer science, including a keynote by MIT researcher Aleksandra Przegalinska.

More than 300 people attended the event and had the opportunity to meet and exchange experiences. The workshops were very successful with more than 120 applications for the 47 available places, which will be continued during the year.

During the networking session women of various specializations exchanged their knowledge and experience with the participants. For the needs of talk&tech, visual identification was created by Magadalena Maliszewska referring to the theme of the event.

The event was a tremendous success in creating a community of women in technology in Wroclaw who were willing to continue with this initiative and similar ones. The generous contributions from ACM and Microsoft, as well as the local branches of NOKIA and Credit Suisse, made this event possible and allowed it to be free and open to everyone.

If you would like information about how you could start your own local Celebration, please contact Wendy Powley (Celebrations Chair) at wendy@cs.queensu.ca. Funding is available!

We are pleased to announce the formation of the first ACM-W Professional Chapter in the U.S. Ohio’s OCWiC ACM-W chapter was chartered on April 25th and hit the ground running. By being able to name the chapter in a way that complements their regional celebration they are poised to become a community hub for sharing ideas and resources across the state.

Chair Bettina Bair explained, “OCWiC ACM-W will benefit from stronger ties with local ACM-W student chapters in Ohio, and we can help them connect with each other. As other new ACM-W Professional Chapters are chartered around the state, we will have even more opportunities for a vibrant exchange of ideas with our sisters, and to co-produce joint projects and events.”

Bair continues, “Becoming a professional chapter formalizes the strong relationship we already have with ACM-W. Connecting our Celebrations to a Professional Chapter provides stability and continuity for our organization. As a newly formalized non-profit, we will have new responsibilities, which will encourage us to adopt more professional practices.”

History:

In 2005, the Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing (OCWiC) was one of ACM-W’s first regional celebrations (celebration.ocwic.org). They have continued to have regular biannual OCWiCs since then, and their community has grown bigger with each event.

In 2017, they announced their Community project to provide the Ohio Women in Computing with more networking opportunities and resources in the years between their Celebrations (community.ocwic.org). Today, they have a website, a blog, an event calendar, a weekly newsletter, and multiple social media channels. Their Community is organized around overlapping “rings” of common interest, like jobs, outreach, events, and clubs, with “ring leaders” keeping the energy and ideas going. They also have a team of regional reporters from ACM-W student chapters around the state, who provide them with news from their areas. Their weekly newsletter has nearly 800 subscribers. They are planning development on the next phase of their website, to provide a data-store for jobs and more community services.

News from ACM-W Student Chapters

We want to offer a huge congratulation to two ACM-W chapters that were winners of the 2017-2018 ACM Student Chapter Excellence Awards. The Community Service Award was given to the College of William & Mary ACM-W chapter and the Website award was given to the University of Wisconsin chapter.

Speaking of awards, there are two ACM-W chapter contests with fast-approaching deadlines. The ACM-W best officer contest will be awarded to a chapter officer who has consistently shown outstanding dedication and leadership. The winner will receive up to $2,000 to attend the 2018 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. To nominate a leader in your chapter (or yourself) click on the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/o5lVASvwhPABrezc2. The deadline is June 1.

Another contest underway is our monthly “best chapter activity.” To apply simply post about your recent activity to the Student Chapters Facebook page. The winning chapter will receive $250 to use for programming or just for an end-of-semester celebration! The next deadline is May 15, so get your posts in. Refer to our web page at (https://www.facebook.com/groups/201119703378118/). for more details.

Finally, we’d like to welcome our new ACM-W student chapters at Manipal IT, Knox College, and Bowling Green State University.

News from ACM-W Europe

The first deadline for womENcourage 2018 is for Workshop/Tutorial on June 15, 2018.

WomENcourage brings together women in the computing profession and related technical fields to exchange knowledge and experience and provide special support for women who are pursuing their academic degrees and starting their careers in computing.